1981 GS450E Rebuild

[SVSooke]

Feel your pain.Only one wrecker left here and they open when it pleases them.It's the place I got my bikes.He knows he has the market here and can charge what he wants and does.The other one that was here the owner died,really nice helpful guy.A bit,well maybe a lot eccentric but not in a bad way.

 

[mike-s]

Just did a skim read of this thread, here i was thinking that getting my GSX working was a saga, you've got me beat, both in misfortune and in patience. The horizon is closer than you think.

 

[Guest]

Feel your pain.Only one wrecker left here and they open when it pleases them.It's the place I got my bikes.He knows he has the market here and can charge what he wants and does.The other one that was here the owner died,really nice helpful guy.A bit,well maybe a lot eccentric but not in a bad way.

Yeah it's quite frustrating. As it turns out, I'm going to have even more limited time to go look this morning if he's open, so I suspect it'll be a bit of a waste of time even if I can get there. Apparently there are other wreckers, but they're way on the south side which means the only way I'll get there is taking a day off work.

The guy that might open today said he's getting too old to be bothered wheeling all the bikes out himself just for a few hours on a Saturday, and from that aspect I sorta understand even if it is frustrating for me...

Just did a skim read of this thread, here i was thinking that getting my GSX working was a saga, you've got me beat, both in misfortune and in patience. The horizon is closer than you think.

Mate it's been a labour of love... apparently

At least I haven't had to take a hammer to my frame though... good luck with that one!

 

[mike-s]

At least I haven't had to take a hammer to my frame though... good luck with that one!

You'll keep, p.s. tried www.findapart.com.au yet? you can attach pictures of current/broken parts to the emails you send out to help wreckers confirm/compare parts.

 

[Redneck]

Pete keep hope in sight... at least with hope in sight we have something to look forward too because I feel that my bike is never going to get done. lol. I feel your pain. Really I do. Have you had any progress on the exhuast pipes other than the mock up? I am looking forward to seeing them on the bike.

Paul

 

[Guest]

You'll keep, p.s. tried www.findapart.com.au yet? you can attach pictures of current/broken parts to the emails you send out to help wreckers confirm/compare parts.

Haha couldn't resist

Haven't had a need to try that one yet, but I have come across it a few times via Google. My problem is I don't know what will fit, so can't go looking for a particular part, although my visit to the wreckers today did show me a RD400 seat is the right dimensions, but will need a bit of work to get to mount to the frame.

Pete keep hope in sight... at least with hope in sight we have something to look forward too because I feel that my bike is never going to get done. lol. I feel your pain. Really I do. Have you had any progress on the exhuast pipes other than the mock up? I am looking forward to seeing them on the bike.

Paul

Mate I ain't givin' up any time soon

I'm constantly looking forward to getting this done and going for a ride finally, but yeah, there are plenty of days it feels like there's no end in sight...

As for the exhaust, at this stage I'm planning a week off at the end of June and want to use that week to get the bike to Tranzac to get the exhaust made and also to do the tank and mudguard painting. I shouldn't need to leave the tank or guards on the bike for Tranzac.

Turns out my dad has a ute I can borrow, I obviously haven't spoken to him enough lately as I thought he still had his old Pulsar...

 

[Guest]

Well the wrecker was open this morning, and while I was only 50% successful, I did get to have a bit of a chat and he was quite helpful which is excellent.

Firstly, I didn't get a seat, but I did find that a Yamaha RD400 seat will fit the bill nicely in terms of overall dimensions, but there'll be quite a lot of work getting it to mount to the frame.

There were a couple of others that would fit as well including a Yamaha SR650 and another that I've forgotten, but both were very wide so will probably look wrong, whereas the RD seat is similar in width to the GS seat.

Unfortunately for me, the RD seat was in pretty good condition and if you had one, you could chuck it on and ride, and of course that means the price was a bit high for me considering I'd need to do a lot of work to it.

The guy there did tell me to get in touch with a guy who runs a business here in Brissie called Hand Made Racers as he'll be able to fabricate me a seat pan for a reasonable price, so that may be worth investigating yet unless I can find a dirt cheap RD400 pan on eBay or something.

I did however score on a rear mudguard. This is actually a front mudguard off a GTR1000, but it'll fit the bill nicely with some remodelling:



Chucked it on with some masking tape to get an idea of fitment:



It's a bit too valanced for how it should look, but it's made out of ABS plastic, so modifying it should be relatively easy, I'll just need to plan it out carefully so I don't ruin it in the process.

I've been contemplating one of these for the brake/tail light as even though it's modern and LED, it should still gel well with the overall look I'm going for:

http://www.thirdgear.com.au/products/Red-Motorcycle-LED-Tail-Light-%2d--Fender-Eliminator.html

It's E-marked and apparently that's ok with the Dept of Transport here from what I've been told, so fingers crossed that's true and it'll be legal for the roadworthy.

I did some more on my gauge LED conversion as well and I'll update that thread now.

 

[Guest]

Neglected to mention I picked up some hose clamps for mounting the electrics tray too:

 

[Guest]

Well, I'm nearly done with my gauge LED conversion. Knocked over the idiot lights over the last few days and tonight I got the speedo backlight done, which means I now know how I'm doing the tacho backlight as well, so that will be all sorted real soon.







Once I'm done with them then I can look at getting the new rear mudguard to fit properly and start thinking more clearly on what to do about my seat situation.

 

[Guest]

Gauges are back together, but camera batteries went flat before being able to take some end result pic's.



Will take some once they're back on the bike after flipping the headlight ears.

 

[davidduarte]

Pete, I'm not sure if you've posted on this before, but what chain and sprocket setup are you using? I've got a 530 chain with 104 links, front sprocket 16 teeth, rear 45 (that's all stock). I'm thinking, for next time I get new chain/sprockets, I might go up a tooth on the front and possibly go with a 520 chain.

 

[Guest]

Everything's stock at the moment. I never had an issue with the stock setup initially, so I've got new ones the same, 16T front, 45T rear, and 104 link 530 chain.

I'm hoping the 2 into 1 once I get it made will give me just a touch more midrange, and that should keep me happy.

 

[davidduarte]

I was thinking of going up one tooth on the front sprocket to lower the rpm when I'm riding on the highway. From what I've seen, the 520 chains are less expensive than the 530, so that would be nice

 

[Guest]

Cool, that should work, and cheaper is always a good thing

 

[Leigh]

Be careful going up on the front sprocket. The teeth can snag on the bolt posts for the cover.

Yes, sadly that is the voice of experience you can hear..

 

[Leigh]

Be careful going up on the front sprocket. The teeth can snag on the bolt posts for the cover.

Yes, sadly that is the voice of experience you can hear..

 

[Guest]

Leigh you're alive again! Good ta hear from ya

Have you cloned yourself in your absence? Seems two of you are replying

 

[Guest]

I got some stuff done today finally... yay!

I've managed to remove some items from my whiteboard which means I'm making some sort of progress...



I redid my mock up today with the new rear guard, but I also put the indicators and headlight shell on and got the cardboard exhaust mock up out again too:





I'm going to have to relocate the rear indicators which is no big deal, and you can see I need to remove probably the front half of the rear mudguard so I can mate it up with the inner guard, but I'll also need to slim it out a little.

If you follow the line from the rear of the guard up and forwards, it needs to be less valanced to fit in with the front guard.

You can also see it should be relatively easy to just chop the rear part of the seat pan off and extend it out with a sheet of metal and get the edges folded down to match the original part of the pan.

I was also eyeing off this LED brake/tail light, but I think the size of my indicators may dwarf it and make it look stupid as it's only 100mm wide and 30mm tall, whereas the indicators are 90mm wide and 70mm tall...

http://www.thirdgear.com.au/product_images/v/881/DSC03642__42006_zoom.JPG

Tonight I also took a couple of dodgy videos with my gauge bulbs replaced with LED's. Ignore the indicators not flashing, I think the PC power supply I'm testing with can't cope and the voltage drops to about 9v:



And the other day I blew up my voltage monitor, so I got bits for that again yesterday and started soldering it up properly tonight.

 

[Matchless]

Your gauges look good with the LED's! Looking forward to your voltage monitor and how it looks!

 

[Guest]

Cheers Andre, I'm happy with the result for sure.

I'm hoping to get the voltage monitor finished up this week in terms of the circuit board itself, but I need to try to find some red and green translucent plastic to sit on top of the white LED's... bit hard to explain but I know what I'm planning, just need to find a good way to execute it...